Monday, September 02, 2013

Not sure how to feel about this one. One the one hand, Kershaw looked less than mediocre for the second time in a row, and though he got the win, he left after 5 innings (81 pitches). A succession of May-like relievers followed; Wilson was effective but Belli and League were not. Even Kenley looked human, giving up a home run and barely scraping three outs. Aside from the pitching, the fielding was shaky at times and there were a few questionable base-running situations. Michael Young struck out on three pitches in his Dodger debut. Worse, Puig had to leave the game with a mild strain of his right knee.

On the other hand, the offense produced ten runs and just kept chugging along despite the pitching keeping giving up leads. Ethier had a bomb and went 3-4 with 3 RBI and 3 runs scored. Uribe went 3-5 and had some timely hits. Even Kershaw got in on the offense, getting 2 hits and 2 RBI. Dodgers move to 12.5 games above the Dbags and narrow the magic number to 14.

Sooooo...we won, but the hard way. Leaves this reporter thirsty and surly, just the way the day began.

Per Tony Jackson, Puig will not play tomorrow but was already due to have the day off. Test of the knee will be Wednesday. Puig said his knee had already been barking awhile, and that this was a tweak of that existing pain.

Sad to be closing out the technical summer, but looking forward to the stretch run and to another two months of SoCal summer. Though for the record I'm wearing a nice Brooks Bros striped linen shirt that now has to be retired until next season. Which means now I can pull on an old Public Enemy concert tee and feel more comfortable.